


Temporal Anomalies

by Nidor_and_Petrichor



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode: e038 Orange Grove, Episode: e049 Old Oak Doors, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Phone Calls, The One True Timepiece in All of Night Vale, Threatening fruit, Time is Weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 20:24:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2242335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nidor_and_Petrichor/pseuds/Nidor_and_Petrichor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cecil wears two watches but it's still not enough to properly time phone calls, Carlos is given false hope, and threatening fruit makes an appearance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temporal Anomalies

**Author's Note:**

> "Citrus is our future. Citrus holds the key to prosperity. Citrus holds the key to health. One particular orange here literally holds the key to a one-sided door in the middle of the desert."

A _Wadokei_ is a masterpiece of engineering, a clock made to keep wonderfully precise, accurate time.

Unfortunately, it is only precise and accurate in the context of pre-1900s Japan, where day and night have an equal number of hours but are of unequal length, and where the hours are counted backwards from nine o'clock to four o'clock, then back around to nine.

In pre-1900s Japan the Wadokei is useful, important, helpful; anywhere else it is at best a curiosity and at worst a difficulty.

This is exactly how Carlos feels about being trapped in the desert otherland.

 

* * *

 

The thing about normalcy is that it is defined by routine. Nothing that happens with regularity can be considered abnormal as it is, by it's nature, typical. Expected. It is now clear that it was a logical fallacy to insist that time in Night Vale isn't normal – it is normal – it is just that what is normal for Night Vale makes absolutely no goddamn sense anywhere else.

Time between Night Vale and the desert otherworld is fluid, constantly shifting. Carlos has not yet managed to create a physical or temporal thought model which adequately explains the ways in which they align, although he is working on it. He has discovered, however, that there is one time when both places move at the same pace, or at least seem to: when he and Cecil are on the phone.

They've tried maintaining phone contact over prolonged periods of time, to see if it will cause the two locations to fall into sync with each other in some way. Twice they've tried this experiment and twice their calls have been dropped after precisely 73 minutes, accompanied by a loud crackle and, on Cecil's end, small flames.

Despite the difficulties inherent in trying to communicate across what Carlos refers to as “Time Twilight Zones”, the two have found a routine that seems to minimize the frustrations inherent in the arrangement: whomever is going to bed first will call the other.

“Carlos! Hold on just a moment, I'm just – where is that? I know it's here some– Oh! There is it. Okay, sorry, I'm just walking in the door,” Cecil says, the sound of shifting bags and muffled thumps coming in the background. “Let me put the perishables in the fridge and then you have my undivided attention. I'm going to put you on speaker phone for a minute.”

“No hurry,” Carlos said. “I expected you'd be in the middle of something. I anticipated that perhaps it would be your show, but I guess my calculations were off. Again. What time is it there?”

Cecil juggles a carton of milk and checks his left wrist. “It's 9:45,” he calls over to the kitchen counter where he's placed his phone while he unloads his groceries. His trips to the store are less frequent now that he only needs to buy enough for one, but he's been meaning to start taking better care of himself and eat something other than peanut butter sandwiches so he's got quite a number of bags this evening – there are vegetables and everything.

He misses Carlos desperately, of course, all the time and in all the ways, but he also dearly misses eating home-cooked meals and dinners that don't require puncturing plastic first. Maybe Earl can give him some tips and he can practice. He could surprise Carlos when he returns.

He would do anything to get him home, even if it means learning how to use an oven.

There is a pause during which Carlos taps a note into his phone before asking, “That's 9:45 local time?”

Cecil balances several bottles of salad dressing and checks his left wrist again, followed by his right. “Yes, and the One True Timepiece says 12:37.”

“A.M. or P.M.?

“P.M. There's a little crescent... moon... thing,” he says, trying to keep the derision out of his voice. It was a nice watch, and a thoughtful gift, but the moon seemed a little bit of a childish touch. He was far beyond believing in old wives tales, after all.

“Wait, P.M.? And there's a moon?”

“Yes. No. Or, wait. When is midnight? I think it means that it's shortly after midnight. Is that late night or early morning, I can never rememb–” Cecil cuts off his musing with a tooth-rattling screech.

He looks down at the object he has pulled, absent-mindedly, from one of the grocery bags: _an orange_.

When the pounding of blood in his ears has subsided slightly, he hears Carlos' panicked voice calling out to him, the desperation strangely subdued in the way it's carried through the tinny phone speakers. He hurries to the counter, the fruit still clutched in his hand, his fingernails piercing its dimpled flesh.

“I am okay,” he says. He picks up the phone and repeats it several times, to reassure them both. “I am okay, I am okay.”

“What happened, what's happening?” Carlos demands. The hardest part of not being there was not being able to take action. It has been a long time since Carlos felt so powerless to act. Before Night Vale his actions were small, insignificant, but being in the small desert town had made him hyper- aware of just how important he could be, to the community, to a single person. “Cecil, what's going on?”

“I– I found an orange. I do not know how it got there. But I touched it. I am still touching it. I do not know what is going to happen next. Carlos, I am worried about what will happen next.”

“Didn't your intern – the angry one? – wasn't it orange juice that brought her here, to the desert?” Carlos did his best to not to sound too excited. This was probably not a time to be gleeful. But if it was the same type of orange that was responsible for the intern's appearance here, then maybe they would be seeing each other soon. Very soon.

“Ye-e-es,” Cecil said slowly. “Although there were others who touched the oranges – not the juice – and I don't know where they went... after.”

“Drop the orange,” Carlos says and Cecil moves to do so. “No! Wait!” Carlos backtracks. “Whatever you do, don't drop the orange! Maybe you have to keep holding it. Maybe if you let go that's when...? I don't know.... Cecil, how _do_ oranges work in Night Vale?”

“That is a mystery that remains unknowable to all but the most senior of citizens, I believe,” Cecil reminds him. “So... should I... should I drop the orange? Or keep holding it? What do you think? Scientifically speaking.”

Carlos wracks his brain, trying to remember what happened the day the oranges all appeared. Most of their effects were instantaneous, or at least very speedy. They also proliferated wildly, filling store shelves and dropping out of attic crawlspaces.

“Is anything unusual happening? A plethora of oranges? Any flickering of reality? Or do you suspect that it may be a common, totally non-transporting orange?”

“I believe I am still in existence on the same plane I was before,” Cecil says, cautious. “I don't feel any different, aside from the sense of dread and uncertainty that I usually feel, which has expanded and intensified after being given just cause to do so.”

“Okay, that's... that's good,” Carlos says. He tries to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He would rather there were no oranges at all than one that might take Cecil somewhere unknown, but there had been that brief glimmer of hope, that fleeting thought that maybe both of them would be cast out of Night Vale. He knows that they would miss it, but they could make a new home, in the desert otherworld, just the two of them. And the army, of course. But it would be a _home_ again.

If anything had happened, that is.

“I am going to peel the orange,” Cecil says, decisive.

“Whatever you do, just stay on the line,” Carlos pleads with him. They have only been talking for a few minutes; if Cecil is transported somewhere and they're able to continue speaking, they may have enough time to work out where he is and formulate a plan for dealing with the situation before their 73 minutes disconnect them.

Cecil moves the phone to cradle it against his ear, held by his shoulder. He looks critically at the fruit in his hands.

“Can you please tell me what is happening?”

“Yes,” Cecil says. “I am turning the orange over in my hands. It appears like any other orange I may have held before in my life. Before I chose to no longer hold oranges for fear of what they might do to me, that is. Its skin is smooth, but textured, slightly pitted, like a poorly-maintained putting green. I am digging my fingernail further into the surface, and applying pressure. I am pulling, and pulling – there is a hunk of skin, clinging to my own skin.

“It smells like an orange,” he adds, his cadence changing and suddently doubtful. He licks a finger. “It  _tastes_ like an orange as well.”

There is a long exhalation. “I am relieved,” Carlos says. “I am relieved and glad and still somewhat nervous and only a tiny bit let down that you did not appear here, with me.”

“If only this orange worked that way,” Cecil said. “But I suppose it is, after everything, wholly unremarkable.”

“It will probably still prevent scurvy,” Carlos reminds him. “Have you gotten sick of peanut butter yet?”

Cecil finishes putting away his groceries, and goes to lay down on his own bed, still fiddling with the orange. He will not go to sleep for some time yet, but knowing that they are both in bed makes conversation easier. There is something much more private and intimate about speaking while laying down, even when the voice on the other end is laying a thousand miles, a million miles, a lifetime, a plane of existence away.

They talk about not just their days, but the things around them, and the feelings inside of them. They talk until they run out of new things to say, but are content to repeat things they've both said so many times before – words of care and love and worry and hope. Some time later Carlos begins to drift to sleep, and Cecil wishes him pleasant dreams and a speedy return.

Some time even later, Cecil finally lays himself down, with one last glance at the photo on the bedside table, the photo of the two of them, together and happy. He dimly considers taking the orange back to the kitchen, but instead he yawns and thinks about it no more.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, the orange is gone.

Well, most of it.

The skin of it, painstakingly flayed and arranged like a butterfly on a pinboard, is held against his headboard by a collection of penknives along with a note:

 

_You should take more care with your food selection. This was entirely too ripe and more pulp than I usually prefer. What kind of fruit are you buying? While your vitamin intake is abysmal, even you don't need this much iron. You cannot make up for a lifetime of inadequacy with only a single attempt._

_Eat a more balanced diet._

_Signed,_

_The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home_

 

The admonishment was mitigated somewhat by the fact that she had not allowed enough room for her signature on the piece of phonebook paper on which the note was scribbled, and so the last few words of her name had to be tacked on in the form of a blue sticky note.

Below the blue sticky note was something even more peculiar, however: a large, heavy, skeleton key.

This was in the orange? How did this fit inside of an orange? This was far too big, too weathered, too _old_ –

Cecil sat bolt upright, remembering that day, months ago, when he'd been attacked by the imposter of John Peters. There had been something said, something about the oranges, about a key....

Hands trembling from excitement, he grabs at his phone and holds his finger on the number “1” until it beings to dial Carlos' number.

Finally, after four rings, there is an answer.

“Is it nighttime again where you are?” Carlos asks, clearly very freshly awoken. Occasionally one of them manages to bypass an entire day of the others' time, ruining their carefully cultivated bedtime ritual, but this is not one of those times.

“No, it's morning. I think. But listen, I found something. There is – there's a key. I think it may be the key to the old oak doors that bridge the space between where you are and where I am – that is, where you should be. I think you can use it to get home!”

“Cecil, that's terrific!” Carlos says, still sounding groggy. “But if it's there with you, how can I use it?”

He hadn't thought of that.

He hadn't thought about anything at all.

There is a long silence.

“No, wait, it's okay, Cecil,” Carlos tells him, slowly coming into altertness. “You can just open the door on your side! As long as there's a keyhole and everything, that is. Is there?”

It hits Cecil like an overturned feelings delivery truck. Very, very much like that, in fact – although it had been an experience he had never been keen on repeating, if he'd had a say in the matter. The scars, both physical and emotional, were still not completely healed.

“The door on my side,” he says.

“Have you tested the key yet? Does it fit?”

Foolish, _foolish_! What had he been thinking? All of this time he's been reproachful of his boyfriend's lack of door-finding, and meanwhile he hadn't even bothered – he hadn't even though to look for the other side, this side, the Night Vale side! And if he could find that....

“I have been behaving abysmally, Carlos. I am, from the deepest, slimiest depths of my still-beating heart, so truly sorry for that.”

“Cecil, what–?”

“Go back to sleep. I'm sorry to have woken you. But now I have a key, and a town full of doors. Will you text me in the morning?”

There was a hum of agreement.

“Goodnight, sweet Carlos. I will talk to you and, I hope, see you, again soon.”

Night Vale is a horrible and unpredictable place where people are small, insignificant in the face of constantly-looming terror.

It has been a long time since Cecil felt so empowered to act.

He is going to find that door, and he is going to bring Carlos back.

**Author's Note:**

> Semi speed write. Please do let me know of any technical issues you spot, and also feel free to offer any constructive criticisms you may have! <3 
> 
> (Non-critical feedback obviously is also welcome!)


End file.
